I'll Be There for You

I’ll Be There for You

by Ellen Fisher

Copyright 2006 by Ellen Fisher

Cover design copyright 2012 by TERyvisions

Smashwords Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

"God, he is so hot."

Alexander Frost looked up from his Budweiser to see his girl friend Jeri Winston drooling over another man.  Girl friend, as in two words, not one. She’d been his best friend since high school, but he didn’t have any claim on Jeri and never had. They were just friends. Even so, he felt himself bristle a bit at her blatant admiration of another guy.

I don’t really see what’s so hot about him, he answered.

Are you kidding, Xander? Jeri turned dark blue eyes gone dreamy with lust in his direction for a second. He couldn’t help but wish the lust was aimed at him, but it obviously wasn’t, since her gaze drifted back to the other guy almost instantly. His shoulders, his chest, his face… oh my God! she yelped as the object of her affection turned slightly. Check out that ass!

I’d rather not, thank you.

She ignored the comment. "That is exactly what I’ve been looking for," she said in a reverent tone that suggested she’d spotted a Michelangelo sculpture in the crowded bar.

What, an ass? Hell, you can find one of those anywhere.

No, you jerk. Pay attention, will you? I’ve been looking for the perfect man.

Alexander took a swig of his beer. What am I, chopped liver?

Oh, of course you’re perfect, she said, absentmindedly reaching over and ruffling his overlong hair. He noticed she didn’t take her eyes off the other guy’s buns of steel. "That’s exactly why you’re my best friend, Xander, because you’re perfect. But it’s a different kind of perfect."

Ah. So I’m perfect in an imperfect kind of way.

She was so focused on Mr. Universe that she didn’t seem to hear. Geez. Look at his forearms. They’re like tree trunks. And check out his muscles.

Against his better judgment, Alexander glanced toward Mr. Perfect, seeing the muscles in the guy’s forearms ripple as he picked up a mug off the mahogany-and-brass bar. Alexander had to admit the muscles in his forearms didn’t ripple that way. Hell, he wasn’t sure he had muscles in his forearms.

He looks like he lives in a gym.

And this is a problem… how?

Oh, come on, Jeri. You’re not really interested in a guy that self-centered, are you?

If he lived in a gym, he wouldn’t be here, would he? She picked up her apple martini and took a ladylike sip. Alexander’s gut tightened as she licked a drop of liquid off her upper lip. He looks terrific and he knows how to have a good time. What more could you want in a lover?

"Are you asking me? Because what I want in a lover is for her to be female. But that’s just me."

She didn’t seem to hear him. God, he’s perfect. And he’s absolutely surrounded by drooling women. Xander! She spun toward him, as if he’d suddenly become visible again. He could practically feel himself pop into existence. You have to help me out here. It’s been a while since I was on the market. How can I get his attention?

Maybe drooling would help. He seems to like that.

She made an impatient sound. Don’t mock me, Xander. You don’t want to make me mad. You’re looking at a woman who hasn’t been laid in months.

I haven’t been laid in months either. So what? You don’t see me salivating over every woman in the bar, do you?

Of course, that was because he was drooling over Jeri, but that was beside the point. She didn’t know that, after all.

I’m not salivating over every man in the bar, she said in the slightly condescending tone of voice that made his molars grind together. He hated it when she talked to him like she was a grownup and he was five. He supposed it was a natural consequence of her teaching job, but it drove him nuts. Just Mr. Incredible over there.

Alexander took another look at Mr. Incredible, trying to figure out exactly what she saw in the guy. Okay, so his face did look a lot like a young Harrison Ford, and his build reminded Alexander of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his glory days—but so what if he looked like an amalgamation of a couple of different movie stars? A guy who looked like that probably had the personality of vanilla pudding, because he didn’t have to work to develop his personality the way a regular guy did. Right? That made sense, didn’t it?

But he had a feeling the twenty or so women clustered around the guy didn’t care all that much about his personality.

Look, he said at last, you at least ought to talk to the guy before you decide to marry him.

I haven’t decided to marry him. Just sleep with him.

Yeah, well, it looks like you might have some competition. Anyway, don’t you want to make sure he can speak in complete sentences before you have sex with him?

Complete sentences aren’t necessary for what I have in mind.

Jesus. When did you become so shallow?

I’ve always been shallow, deep down. She flashed a self-deprecating grin at him over the rim of her martini glass, and his stomach dropped to the floor. Because if there was one thing he knew about Jeri, it was that she wasn’t shallow. He knew her better than anyone else on the planet, after all. He knew the way her mom had driven her to the edge of sanity in high school. He knew her every dream and the details of her plans for the future. And shallow was the last word he’d ever think of to describe her.Except maybe when she was slobbering over hunky guys in bars.

Look, she said in a more reasonable tone, still eying her target, "I haven’t had any in months, and he looks as yummy as Krispy Kremes look when I’m on a diet. What would you do? And don’t tell me you’ve decided to embrace celibacy, because I know better."

Alexander sighed. No, I haven’t decided to embrace celibacy. But I don’t usually pick up complete strangers in bars, either. I like to go out with the woman a couple of times, get to know her a bit, before we sleep together. He grinned. Just an old-fashioned guy, that’s me.

Yeah, that’s pretty old school. She put her eyes back in their sockets, turned her head toward him, and made a show of wiping away drool. But you’re right. I ought to talk to him before I sleep with him.

Way to go, Frost, Alexander thought in disgust. Now she was planning to get to know the guy before she slept with him. Instead of a one-night stand, this could become a relationship. That’d be even worse.

Of course, that shouldn’t be a problem for him, since he and Jeri had never had any sort of romantic entanglement. They’d known each other for a decade, but the first and only date they’d ever gone on together was their senior prom, and that hadn’t exactly turned out to be a magical night. He’d entertained late-night thoughts of making a move on her for years, but it always seemed that whenever she was free, he was involved with someone, and vice versa.

They’d both been free for the past few months, though, and he’d been thinking about asking her out a lot more frequently than usual. She’d stepped out of his nightly fantasies and into his every waking thought. But as usual, it looked like he’d waited too long to make a move.

Damn it. He was a moron.

In desperation, he looked at the guy one more time, looking for something overt he could point out to discourage her, like a missing front tooth or a huge wart on the end of the guy’s nose. He didn’t find anything. God help him, the guy was perfect. He couldn’t be more perfect if he’d just been unwrapped from bubble wrap and stepped out of a cardboard shipping container.

But then he noticed something else.

Holy shit, he said. "Do you realize who that guy is?"

*****

Jeri studied the guy who’d caught her attention more closely. There was something about him that had made every female part of her body jump to attention, and now that she looked more closely, she realized exactly what it was. He bore a striking resemblance to a boy she’d had a huge crush on in high school, one Connor Addison. He’d been the tall, dark-haired, incredibly good-looking star of the football team, and she’d been an unpopular pudge. He’d never looked twice at her.

The summer after graduation, she’d worn a hole through his picture in the yearbook from kissing it so often.

She threw off the memory with a shudder. God, she’d been pathetic in high school, just as her mom had told her, over and over again. Even now, ten years later, she couldn’t think about the sheer awfulness of her senior year without feeling nauseated. She’d been so fat, so totally uncool, and her mom’s constant reminders of how desperately she needed to lose weight had utterly shredded her self-esteem. If it hadn’t been for Xander’s staunch friendship, she wasn’t sure she would have survived high school at all.

Are you going to tell me he’s an actor? she said. "Because he does look a lot like Harrison Ford in Star Wars. But unless Harrison had a face lift recently—"

No. It’s Connor Addison.

Her knees went weak, and a hot flush spread across her cheeks. Can’t be.